Story+2009-11-08+New+York+City,+NY

“Good evening, New York City (crowd cheers) hello, Madison Square Garden… (…) Now, my home’s in the Meadowlands but tonight New York City’s gonna go up in flames (crowd cheers) where the blood is spilled and the Garden’s filled and Earl the Pearl played his game…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “Wrecking Ball”**

“Good evening, everybody (crowd cheers) we’re gonna get right to work now…tonight we’ve got something…never before performed! (crowd cheers) just this one time (crowd cheers) it’s too long to do it again…as you know, towards the end of our, we’re in the last seven shows of our tour, we’ve had a great couple of years out here playing for you, we appreciate your support and uh (crowd cheers) we tried to think of things that would make these last series of dates fun for ourselves and our fans so we’ve been playing different albums on different nights, we’ve played “Born to Run,” “Born in the U.S.A,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” we played “The Wild and the Innocent” last night for you folks (crowd cheers) this is a record, uh, it’s sort of a gateway to a lot of my future writing, it’s a record we made after “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” it was a record during a recession, hard times in the States, uh, its title song is a song I wrote for my brother* and sister, uh, brother’s in the construction industry and lost his job and they had to struggle very hard back in the late seventies, like so many people are doing today…uh, it was a record where I first started to tackle men and women and families and marriage and, uh, there were certain songs on it that led to complete records later on, “The River” sort of led to the writing on “Nebraska” (crowd cheers) “Stolen Car” led to the writing on “Tunnel of Love” (crowd cheers) it was a record where, originally it was a single record, I handed it with just one record and I took it back because I didn’t feel it was, uh, it was big enough and I wanted to sort of capture the themes that I’d been writing about on, on “Darkness,” I wanted to keep those characters with me and at the same time added the music that made our live shows so much fun and enjoyable for our audience so, uh, in the end…we’re gonna take you down to “The River” tonight (crowd cheers)…” //[* Bruce means his brother-in-law, not brother.]//
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “The Ties That Bind”**

“Let’s hear some party noises (crowd cheers) come on, C…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “Sherry Darling”**

“And now…a masterpiece on “The River”…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “Crush on You”**

“Can anybody get me a Ca-Ca-Ca-Cadillac? (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “Cadillac Ranch**

“These are the guys that recorded the record (crowd cheers) and Phantom Dan Federici (crowd cheers) thank you (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, after “Wreck on the Highway”**

“Alright, let’s hear ‘em – I’m waitin’ (Crowd sings the chorus) do we have a volunteer?...oh my God, it’s safe, it’s safe (chuckles)…(a kid sings very quietly and at the end says “Take it, Big Man”)…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, middle of “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day”**

“Alright, this is by request…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “Atlantic City”**

“Curt Ramm, where are you, man, Curt Ramm? we need a trumpet player…alright, this, Curt, you know this one? I know you do…I know you do…we ain’t played this in a long time…this is our one and only request (?) I think we should do it in “C”...do you like…(?) …long as it’s swinging…oh yeah, oh yeah…spotlight – that’s pretty high, let’s go down to B-flat – do you like – oh, that’s good…yeah, yeah…spotlight on Little Steven (chuckles)(crowd cheers) alright, it starts out with the horns, right?...(sings the horn-part and the crowd joins in) somewhere in there…we’ll figure it out once we get going…you guys got the riff? B-flat…let’s try it…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “Sweet Soul Music”**

“Thank you, New York City, for coming out to these two shows (crowd cheers)… (…) Little Steven (crowd cheers) First Lady of the E Street Band, Miss Patti Scialfa (crowd cheers) Sister Soozie Tyrell (crowd cheers) Curt Ramm (crowd cheers) Curtis King (crowd cheers) the Mighty Max Weinberg (crowd cheers) Garry W. Tallent (crowd cheers) Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) Charlie Giordano (crowd cheers) Cindy Mizelle (crowd cheers) one of the greatest guitarists in the world, Nils Lofgren (crowd cheers) saxophonist…libertine…man of words… author…he’s bigger than Shakespeare…his book is better than the Bible…ladies and gentlemen…the biggest author you’ve ever seen, Clarence “Big Man” Clemons (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) you’ve just seen the last of – for a little while - the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, earth-shocking, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, love-making, Viagra-taking, history-making, legendary (crowd: “E Street Band”)(crowd cheers)...”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “American Land”**

“We love you, New York (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, end of “Can’t Help Falling in Love”**

“Come on, horns…are you ready to bring it home? (crowd cheers) can we take this thing a little higher? (crowd cheers) can we take it higher? (crowd cheers) can we take it higher? (crowd cheers) can we take it higher? (crowd cheers) let’s go, a-one, two… (…) Thank you, New York City (crowd cheers) thank you, New York (crowd cheers) we’ll be seeing you…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, intro to “Higher and Higher”**

“(?)…alright…thank you, New York City (crowd cheers) for your love and support for two fabulous nights – we had a great time…we’ll be seeing you further on up the road (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.11.09 New York, NY, after “Higher and Higher”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//